Wanda Nanibush

Wanda Nanibush is the inaugural Curator, Indigenous Art of the Indigenous + Canadian Art department at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Nanibush is an Anishinaabe-kwe curator, writer, image-maker, and community organizer from Beausoleil First Nation, located in Southern Ontario. Nanibush has a Master’s degree in visual studies from the University of Toronto.

Over the past two decades, Nanibush has served in a wide range of capacities from programmer and festival coordinator to Aboriginal arts officer and executive director. During that time, she worked with organizations such as ImagineNATIVE, LIFT, Optic Nerve Film Festival, Reframe Film Festival, the Ontario Arts Council, Aboriginal Curatorial Collective, and the Association for Native Development in the Performing & Visual Arts (ANDPVA). Her curatorial credits include the exhibitions Rita Letendre: Fire & Light (AGO), Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989 (AGO), Sovereign Acts II (Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery), and the award winning KWE: The work of Rebecca Belmore (Justina M. Barnicke Gallery) among many others.

Nanibush has published widely on the subject of Indigenous art as well as women’s issues, and is currently at work on her first book, titled Violence No More: The Rise of Indigenous Women. She has taught graduate courses at the University of Toronto and currently at OCADU.